So here's how crappy St. Louis weather has been lately: Organizers had to cancel the St. Louis MuckFest because it's too damn mucky.

That's not a joke.

MuckFest MS is a fundraiser for multiple sclerosis that involves intrepid souls racing for 3.1 miles over "mountains of mud and outrageous obstacles that spin, swing, and fling them up, down, and sideways," in the words of its organizers.

Property manager Rick Schmitt holds some of the biggest hail from this morning's storm.

Welcome to this very gloomy Tuesday, and may we suggest you put your car in the garage if you're out in the far west-county area? There's an angry storm system churning through St. Louis, bringing with it plenty of hail -- some ice chunks are as big as golf balls.

Out at the Innsbrook Resort near Wentzville, administrative assistant Karen Denson says the staff scrambled to get all their vehicles under some kind of shelter.

"It was pretty dramatic," she says. "It started hailing little, and just kept getting bigger and bigger."

The storm got so bad, she says, the hail actually took out a couple of security vehicles' windshields. Here are some of the craziest hail photos we've seen from around the area.

The Gateway Arch is struck by lightning several times a year, but there's never been any problems.

After years of hunting for the perfect shot, a St. Louis photographer took an electrifying video of the Gateway Arch getting struck by lightning last Wednesday.

Dan Robinson, the guy who caught the Arch's most recent encounter with lightning on film, was on a business trip in West Virginia as he monitored storms in St. Louis. He noticed the storms were "very lightning active," so when he saw one on its way to St. Louis, he packed it in early and headed for home.

Using a high-definition video camera, Robinson set up shop on Memorial Drive and waited, literally, for lightning to strike, though he didn't expect it would be twice.

If only the polar vortex came every summer -- and never in the winter.

After a demoralizing and brutal winter under the icy thumb of the polar vortex, St. Louis is feeling a similar weather pattern that's capping summer temperatures at a pleasant 80 degrees.

It's not exactly a polar vortex, because the air mass cooling us off is coming from western Canada, not directly from the arctic, meteorologists tell the Associated Press. But with temperatures this nice, who cares?

In honor of the season's uncharacteristically lovely weather, Daily RFT whipped up ten outdoor activities -- the kind that St. Louisans endure in the dog days of summer but that are so much more fun without sweat rags and dehydration.

Here are our suggestions for the best way to enjoy this week's "polar vortex":

Meet Frankie MacDonald, a 28-year-old weather guru from Nova Scotia whose YouTube forecasts have become something of an Internet sensation. Earlier this week MacDonald issued a dire message for Missourians: Be prepared for a major winter storm this Sunday, March 2.